he whole thing
was cruelly hard. It was cruelly hard upon him that he should be
brought into this trouble, and be forced to take upon himself the
armour of a knight-errant for the redress of the wrong on the part
of the young lady. But when alone in his house, or with his child,
he declared to himself that he would do so. It might well be that
he could not live in Barsetshire after he had married Mr. Crawley's
daughter. He had inherited from his father enough of that longing
for ascendancy among those around him to make him feel that in
such circumstances he would be wretched. But he would be made more
wretched by the self-knowledge that he had behaved badly to the girl
he loved; and the world beyond Barsetshire was open to him. He would
take her with him to Canada, to New Zealand, or to some other faraway
country, and there begin his life again. Should his father choose
to punish him for so doing by disinheriting him, they would be poor
enough; but, in his present frame of mind, the major was able to
regard such poverty as honourable and not altogether disagreeable.

He had been out shooting all day at Chaldicotes, with Dr. Thorne and a
party who were staying in the house there, and had been talking about
Mr. Crawley, first with one man and then with another. Lord Lufton had
been there, and young Gresham from Greshamsbury, and Mr. Robarts, the
clergyman, and news had come among them of the attempt made by the
bishop to stop Mr. Crawley from preaching. Mr. Robarts had been of
opinion that Mr. Crawley should have given way; and Lord Lufton, who
shared his mother's intense dislike of everything that came from the
palace, had sworn that he was right to resist. The sympathy of the
whole party had been with Mr. Crawley; but they had all agreed that he
had stolen the money.

"I fear he'll have to give way to the bishop at last," Lord Lufton
had said.

"And what on earth will become of his children," said the doctor.
"Think of the fate of that pretty girl; for she is a very pretty
girl. It will be the ruin of her. No man will allow himself to fall
in love with her when her father shall have been found guilty of
stealing a cheque for twenty pounds."

"We must do something for the whole family," said the lord. "I say,
Thorne, you haven't half the game here that there used to be in poor
old Sowerby's time."

"Haven't I?" said the doctor. "You see, Sowerby had been at it all
his days, and never did anything else. I only beg